Project Management of the Abutment Bridge - Assignment Example

The guiding criterion for this design structure is informed by the need to minimize costs associated with total investment in the construction as well as ensuring that maintenance costs. One of the reasons that increase costs for maintenance of bridge constructions is damage to bearings at the abutment as well as the expansion joints and usually, this costs as compared to the costs of the construction of road bridges is usually higher for medium class and short bridges (Hirakawa, Minehiro, Hiroyuki & Tatsuoka 2014).

This is an attribute of the design that this specified design has to cater to by introducing the integral abutment structures with the capacity to omit expansion joints and bearingsWork Breakdown StructureDesign of the Abutment BridgeThe design of this abutment bridge has two parts: a) the main structure that has the superstructure, the Abutment Bridge framework, the abutment wall, and the foundation; b) the approach embankment that is built on top of the main structure. This design is made for a bridge that is less than 40m with a height of 10m.

This height is limited since lateral displacements increase with an increase in height due to the insertion of earth pressure (Hirakawa, Minehiro, Hiroyuki & Tatsuoka 2014). In this design, the shape of the superstructure is straight since skewed bridges have unpredictable structural behaviors when there is a difference in the inertial force exerted on the superstructure compared to the earth pressure exerted on the backfill (Wysocki 2013).The materials from which the embankment (backfill) is made is sand or at the very least, gravel soil that is able to properly compact as artificial lightweight materials are inappropriate due to the instability that they cause to the whole structure (Harrison & Lock 2004).

In this design, as shown in figure 1 below, the design length from the bottom of the abutment wall and the top of the supporting wall is maintained more than 4m based on the deformation capacity of the foundation based on the State Bridge Design Manual (v2008).